This is Your Bipolar Brain on Drugs

It’s the feeling you get when you’re higher than the moon for no reason at all.

You’re invincible. Everything you do or say is brilliant. You’re hyper-aware. You’re bathing in a pool of euphoria. Everyone’s your friend. People are attracted to your über-positive energy. You go on shopping sprees. Life is magical. You’re manic – a state of heightened mood marked by delusions of grandeur and sometimes psychosis and hallucinations. It is being under the influence of your own brain without substances. You think you’re just happy. That everything is going your way. You don’t have a problem. But you do.

You’re high. But you didn’t do any drugs. That high is addictive. But now you just want to get higher. So you smoke some weed, snort some coke, drink some vodka, pop some Vicodin, do some ketamine. You speedball. You candy flip. You smoke crack. Anything to get you higher and higher. And then you get addicted. This is bipolar addiction.

There are 5.7 million Americans living with bipolar disorder. 60 percent of them are addicts.

But what does it feel like to be a bipolar addict?

Conor Oberst of Omaha indie rock band Bright Eyes describes it to a T in the song “Road to Joy” off his 4^th album “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning.”

I’m drinking, breathing, writing, singing

Every day I’m on the clock

My mind races with all my longings

But can’t keep up with what I got

That lyric encapsulates the feeling of mania. The hypercreativity. The racing thoughts. And later on, Conor screams “I’m wide awake, it’s morning!” An overjoyed declaration after staying up all night, perhaps?

The bipolar addict needs no occasion to get drunk or high. It’s not a weekend thing. It’s not a New Year’s Eve thing or a wedding thing. It’s an every day thing. Simply being at home alone is the perfect occasion.

When depression strikes, you will do anything to make yourself feel better. Weed might help. Alcohol does not. Why? Because alcohol is a depressant. Many of us use it anyway to alter our state of mind.

No surprise: depression sucks. Your body feels heavy. You cry every day. Sometimes hysterically, sometimes sobbing.

When you drink or use drugs every day – becoming a bipolar addict – you fall into a routine. For me it was wake up at 2PM, have coffee, maybe eat something and then when 5PM rolls around drink until you pass out. “Starting drinking at 5PM is normal,”  you rationalize. “It’s happy hour, right?”

Your medication cocktail doesn’t work when you drink and do drugs every day. You may feel good. Of course you do because you’re high. Maybe you’re not manic, but you’re definitely not happy either. In reality, you’re miserable.

You’re that hamster on a wheel chasing the mania. And it feels good. Until you fall down some stairs and slice your forehead open. Or nearly overdose. Or attempt suicide by taking an entire bottle of Lithium.

Then you go to rehab and learn what it feels like to be a normal human being again. You get sober one day at a time. Your medication starts to work again. Maybe you go back to school. You get your career on track again. And you feel better than ever. More on recovery later.

Any questions?

Conor Bezane

Head Writer

Conor Bezane is a music-meister who has written for MTV News, AOL, and VICE. He is a recovering bipolar addict who can be found digging through the crates at a local record store when he’s not attacking his keyboard, writing nonfiction. His first book, The Bipolar Addict, is available now on Amazon.